


Whose Skin is This Design?

by viiemzee



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, post-36
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2745815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiemzee/pseuds/viiemzee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years. Three years ago she disappeared. And now she's back at your doorstep, shivering and cold but still so fucking snarky. If she thinks that she can waltz back into your life like this, this vampire has got another thing coming to her...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: I Don't Wanna Think of You Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Post-36, and roughly about 3/4 years after the events of Silas. Each chapter is a song title that has to do with what happens in the chapter.

_Tonight, goodnight, goodbye_

Apollo I: The Writing Writer – Coheed & Cambria (Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness)

* * *

She woke up that night with a burning in her chest and tears streaming down her face; a glance at the digital clock beside her half-empty double bed proved that it wasn’t an acceptable time to be awake anyway.

(She didn’t know why she kept the stupid double bed in the first place. She hadn’t shared it with anyone in three years.)

The thought hit her like a brick to the chest, shortening her breath to a gasp and making her groan slightly. Three years. If the date on the left hand corner of the clock was anything to go by, then it was exactly three years ago.

She hit the pillow hard, her eyes screwed shut and a pain throbbing in her head, a pain that hadn’t subsided in the past year. She hadn’t thought she’d ever miss the bad dreams, because at least they were dreams, and at least the black cat was prowling around in them.

She cursed the cat and all it stood for, and kicked at the covers, giving out a loud groan of frustration.

It was always so hard to go back to sleep when she woke up like this.

Her head turned instinctively to her desk where a mountain of work lay on her laptop, articles to edit and send back, articles to actually write, things to approve, junior journalist’s emails to answer. When she couldn’t sleep, when the black cat was missed and her memories proved too painful for the pain in her head, she would normally turn and work herself back to sleep, until her alarm clock dutifully rang out at eight and reminded her that she had an office to get to.

She rolled out of bed and wrapped herself up in the first thing she could find – a yellow blanket she had bought not long after she moved into this apartment – and sat down at her desk, watching her laptop slowly light up. She zoned out for a second, her mind travelling back to a night she tried to forget, and completely ignored her work load when her desktop lit up. Her hand travelled, without her wanting it to, to the small ‘W’ icon at the bottom of her screen, and before she knew it, white was everywhere.

She breathed out.

Thinking ruined the process most times, she knew that. So she didn’t think. She let herself write.

_You left me._

_You told me that you were leaving because you had to, not because you wanted to._

_You told me that you were leaving but that it didn’t mean you were leaving_ me _._

_I don’t underst_

She cursed silently and deleted the entire thing, staring back at the screen, twiddling her fingers against her arms, letting out deep puffs of air. A familiar charm hung closer to her, but she ignored her instinct to grab it.

Her hands went back to the keyboard.

_Two girls lived together for a few weeks before they fell in love, under very special circumstances. Two girls who couldn’t have been more wrong for each other. Two girls fought a great evil and came out relatively unscathed._

_Two girls found each other before one girl had to leave._

_She made a lot of excuses, she said it wasn’t the end. She said she was leaving because there were things to settle._

_One girl left, the other was left behind._

_She said there was unfinished business to look after, that she was leaving to make the world safer for her. For them. But for her especially._

_The ‘her’ couldn’t understand why._

_Three years ago, two girls who loved each other were ripped apart, by forces in the middle of their love, and one girl wouldn’t explain why._

_And that left only one, waiting for three years._

Laura Hollis closed her laptop and felt the tears prick her eyes again, breathing in a sigh of dejection as she remembered the night that tore her apart, and the words that forever shine behind her closed eyes.

 _Unfinished business_.


	2. Chapter 1: Right Back Into My Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's been a late chapter and that it's so short. FORGIVE ME. Next will be better.

_If the compass breaks, follow your heart_

_And I hope it leads you right back into my arms_

Stand Up and Run – Billy Talent (Dead Silence)

* * *

 _It’s been three years_ , she’s told herself almost every day for the past two weeks now, getting herself used to the thought. She would never be fully accustomed to the fact that she was sleeping in an empty bed, but maybe one day she’d desynthesise herself to it.

* * *

“Why is the news making such a huge deal about this huge black cat that’s been roaming around lately?” one of the junior writers asked, and before he could be shot down by the head of the paper, Laura had taken a good look at him.

He wasn’t kidding.

* * *

“Laura, have you heard?”

She sighed into her phone and looked at her nails. “About...?”

“About the cat.”

“Perry, please, I...don’t want to talk about it.”

* * *

_Black cats may cause bad luck, but they never forget the people they want good things to happen to._

_Limping and cold, black cats always find their way back home._

* * *

Laura liked the love seat coz it was big enough for one – two, if you really wanted a tight squeeze, but just one and she was perfectly comfortable. After days at the office full of stupid questions and tiring junior writers and interns who couldn’t understand basic concepts, she especially loved to sit in it with a book that was trashy and two hundred pages long and the knowledge that she’d stop reading after the third chapter because of atrocious writing, but she’d do it anyway because fuck it, she had the time.

She loved that the weather was terrible for this time of year, raining and windy and cold enough to warrant her switching on the gas heater her father had bought her when she bought the apartment. Smiling to herself, despite the thoughts plaguing her mind, she opened the book and resigned herself to a quiet evening...

***CRASH***

She almost leapt out of her seat, completely still as something outside her apartment stirred.

***Bang***

This noise was softer...

***knock. Knock. Knock.***

For a moment, Laura’s mind refused to register that the knocking was at her door. It sounded too far away, too disjointed to actually be anywhere near her apartment. But then it happened again, softer and slower, and she heard what sounded like a strangled gasp.

_Oh god, what if it’s Matthew or Neil or Karin and they got in trouble and need my help? I mean, they know where I live—_

Frozen in place as the thoughts ran through her head, she only moved when she heard another knock, weaker, and what sounded like somebody calling her name.

She ran to the door so quickly she almost tripped over her carpet to get to it. Tearing it open, she stared at the mess of black hair and black clothes before her, almost not believing anything she saw in front of her.

 _It’s been three years_ , her mind yelled at her.

“But...” she whispered out loud, and Carmilla looked up at her, a large red gash across the bridge on her nose, two long scratches on her throat, and a very badly bruised eye.

“I told you I’d be back, cutie,” she whispered hoarsely, bringing a hand up to her face and wincing.

_It’s been three years._

“Carmilla, it’s-”

“I know. Three years. I know,” she sighed, looking behind Laura to the apartment. “So?”

Knowing that she might die on her doorstep if she didn’t let her in right then, Laura nodded, and Carmilla smiled, before slumping forward and fainting onto her carpet.


End file.
